Blogging about Loughborough: local history, past and current events, places to visit! Basically, anything that's interesting to me and I think might be of interest to you! Articles are usually posted at 8pm on Sundays.

Sunday, 28 December 2014

It's Sunday evening, almost exactly half way between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and I'm sitting here wondering what to write! Of course, I've had little time to research any specific topic, and although there have been plenty of opportunities to take photos, I haven't! Truth to tell, I've not been aboutloughborough much lately, either, and when I have I've been frantically last-minute shopping, or entertaining.

So, as we're approaching New Year's Day here's my review of the year 2014, through my blog posts.

lynneaboutloughborough blogposts are posted each Sunday, around 8pm. This year I have managed to publish 44 out of a possible 52 weekly articles. Some of these have been rather popular, but as I'd have expected, others have drawn fewer readers, and those posts that appeal to me, aren't necessarily the ones that appeal to you! Sometimes I've had time to do some in-depth research and have presented this to you, other times I've not had a chance to look into anything in detail, so I have either presented a photoblog of something I've done, or somewhere I've been, or I've described some of my latest shenanigans around and about town.

Let's count down to your number one favourite post, starting from 13!!

At 13, with 225: Spotlight on: 54 Baxter Gate was a post prompted by a conversation on facebook and described Baxter Gate, and specifically number 54 which was once the home of auction mart Garton and Annatt, before becoming a nurses' home, a doctor's surgery and a medical information centre. Plans are afoot to create a Pizza Express in this Grade II listed building.

Sunday, 21 December 2014

Andy Everitt-Stewart: First solo exhibition at Charnwood Museum

It Started with a Cat

A couple of weeks ago I created a page on my blog for
listing musical groups and other artistic people and groups, and as this was
limited by my own knowledge, I didn’t include many artists and groups other
than musical. So, today I became aware of the illustrator of Eric Hill’s Spot the Dog, Andy Everitt-Stewart, a local
artist who was trained at Loughborough College of Art and Design and is
currently exhibiting his work at Charnwood Museum. I popped along, and I can
honestly say the exhibition is well worth a visit if you have time to between now and
the beginning of January. If you do go before Christmas, you may even be able
to pick up that last-minute present!

On his webpage Andy describes himself as a “freelance
illustrator and paper engineer”, and his exhibition doesn’t disappoint!
Illustrations from books, including Spot the Dog, some Ladybird books, and an
updated Peter Rabbit, adorn the walls of the exhibition room, and some examples of some very elaborate pop-up books,
sit in the display cabinets, almost coming to life in
the mind’s eye.

Against the white backdrop, everything is so colourful and
each picture stands out, and because they are mostly illustrations for children’s
books, they look so appealing – even, or is that, especially to adults! Several of the works were
produced for Ladybird Books, some for Spot the Dog, others for books in the Beatrix
Potter series, and others for a variety of publishers.

The pop-up books on display in the cases deserve a special
mention for being so intricate and elaborate. You can see the planning stage too,
where models are made with plain white paper before being transferred to the real
thing. I’m sure we’ve all enjoyed pop-up books when we were children, but the planning
involved in producing one would probably have passed us by!

Anyway, my pictures of the exhibition are not as good as the
one’s on Andy’s website, but here are a few to whet your appetite:

Sunday, 14 December 2014

This time of year is always busy with lots of Christmas concerts and a variety of other things.

Last Sunday evening I was at St Mary's Church in Melton Mowbray to celebrate their Christmas tree festival, and to listen to the Hathern Senior Band playing pieces before and after the service and carols during the service. As ever, they were brilliant, and all in all it was a lovely evening. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the Loughborough parish church tree festival, so here's some pics from Melton's (with apologies for focusing on the trombone section!):

The day before I had been to a Loughborough Archaeological and Historical Society meeting at which we had a talk on local alabaster: This included a description of alabaster from the area, its uses and its history. A number of local churches contain, amongst other things, alabaster statues, and the church at Tutbury (a place I go to fairly often) was started to be built in about 1086 by Henry de Ferrers and uses alabaster in one of the door arches, has an alabaster coffin inside, as well as an alabaster altar-piece. You can read about the use of alabaster in Loughborough in an earlier post of mine, and if I ever get to see any for real, I'll be sure to take some pics to post on the blog. In the meantime, here's a photograph of some alabaster we saw at the LAHS meeting:

Last evening saw me in the Hodson Hall at the Grammar School, again listening to Hathern Band, this time in their traditional Christmas concerts, featuring lots of exciting Christmas pieces, and a couple of carols. This concerts also features the Training Band and the Concert Brass, all of whom played exceptionally well. If you weren't able to come along to any of the band's concerts, you can find the band's Christmas CD as well as their most recent release on the Hathern Band webpages.

Sunday, 7 December 2014

This week sees the unveiling of the mural by Wei Ong, in Devonshire Square. Wei Ong, who is probably better known by the moniker Silent Hobo, was chosen from a number of different artists, to produce a mural to liven up Devonshire, above the shops where the car park used to be!

He has been working on this for a few months, and some of his work was on display in the town for a little while, including his interpretation of Lady Jane Grey. Members of the public were quizzed in the town centre about what they would like to see appear on the mural, there was a public meeting in Charnwood Museum café, and many other opportunities for people to have their say.

Although the unveiling is on Sunday 6 December, 2014, the mural is already up and brightening up the area. My pics don't do it justice, and I really can't remember the order of the panels, but, if you can't get down to see it, perhaps this will give you an idea of what it looks like. The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that these pics were taken on market day, and you might spot the new brightly coloured market stalls. And, if you have moved away from town, it might help you to place Devonshire Square if you remember that some of the shops in this area in the 1980s like Tesco, the Lotus House Chinese Restaurant and the Motorists' Discount Centre!

So far on the mural I've spotted Taylor's Bellfoundry, The Carillon, Ladybird Books, the fair, the library, the Charnwood fox, the markets, the "parish church", Towers (possibly!), a steam train, a canal boat, the Bastard Gates, and possibly Archdeacon Fearon, Robert Bakewell and Songster.

About Me

Been working in libraries for 37 years; public libraries for two years, followed by a special library for two years, and then academic libraries for the remainder! One of the highlights of my career was teaching myself html coding way back in 1995. Trying to re-create that high with a blog, a wiki, and other social media tools, including cataloguing my home book collection using librarything! Excited to have completed a local history course with OUDCE and to shortly be a published author with Amberley.